Nature nurture debate Essay

Critically compare how the nature/nurture debate has been addressed by three different researchers or schools of thought in psychology and/or philosophy. At least ones of the researchers/schools must have been active before the 20th century. The nature nurture debate has been a traditional argument for centuries between numerous psychologists. The debate questions whether human abilities are innate or obtained through experience. All through history, psychologists have not been able to come to an agreement with the debate of nature and nurture. Even though all psychologists have not been able to agree on the same views, there are several ypotheses that have been tested. This essay will critically compare the relative importance of the debate through defining the key terms nature and nurture, focussing on three schools in psychology- Behaviourism, Psychoanalysis and Cognitive; discussing their findings involved and using evidence to back up arguments used throughout. Nature is defined as human-beings come into the world as intuitive store of knowledge and understanding of reality (Smith et al 2003 p. ). In other words the Nature side of the debate believes that everyone is born with some sort of information. Smith et al (2003 p. ) also defined Nurture as being â€Å"knowledge being acquired through experience and interactions of the world. This suggests that everyone is born as a blank slate and learn everything through the environment around us. Structuralism was one of the earliest schools that came about prior to the 20t h century due to the Work of Wilhelm Wundt. It was the first school of thought to be established. The paradigm of structuralism is primarily concerned with the structure of the human psyche, and it does not address historical aspects or change in culture† (Lett 1987, Rubel and Rosman 1996). Wilhelm Wundt was interested in tudying mental experiences. His psychology relied on the natural sciences, and he believed that psychology was all about conscious experience. The method known as introspection was brought into play with Wundt believing that trained observers could illustrate thoughts, feelings and emotions through the use of this procedure. Cited online: (Kendra Cherry 2012). Wundt defined introspection as â€Å"the examination of one’s own mental state† (Schultz D, P & Schultz S, E. 2008 p. ) This suggests that introspection can be seen as a self examination. In his work of introspection he wanted to identify aspects to do with mental experience. To support this Nevid, J. S (2009 p. 7) proposed that â€Å"Wundt used introspection as a method of elaborating the basic structures of mental experience in the structure of feelings, perceptions and sensations. † What’s more, Edward B. Titchener (1867-1927) who became a disciple of Wilhelm Wundt. Titchener collaborated with Wundt on the method known as introspection and the pair decided together to attempt the construction of Ones mind, in terms of breaking down mental experiences into their component parts (Nevid, J. S 2009). As regards to the nature- nurture debate, some theorists may see Structuralism being slightly more on the nurture side, since Wundt’s explains the experiences within a person. However, Structuralism mainly falls towards the nature side of the debate which he talks about internal reasons, that Wundt proposes the experience of a person and those experiences are caused by the environment. nconscious drives. Initially, psychology should be scientific and should always be able to measure the things you’re studying. Also, introspection could be seen as lacking in reliability and the construction of and individual’s brain can be seen as too subjective (Moore 2011). Therefore, the work by Wundt and his disciple Titchener would not be seen v alid. Another school of thought is Behaviourism. It was introduced in the early 20th century by John B. Watson and was the primary paradigm in psychology around this time. Behaviourism is mostly concerned with observable behaviour as opposed to internal events like thinking† (McLeod, S. A. 2007). â€Å"The emphasis was placed upon identifying the external factors and produce changes in behaviour, learning or conditioning using a ‘stimulus response’ model† (Malim ; Birch 1998 cited in Ingleby et al 2010). John B. Watson (1978-1958) gnored Structuralism views, when he considered that the only area under discussion that psychologists ought to consider was that of behaviour, and he rejected the consciousness theory. ). Watson did not believe in introspection being any part of his school of thoughts. He believed that behaviourism would eliminate all initiatives that Structuralism invented. Supporting this Dewey, R (2007) proposes that â€Å"Watson implied the behaviourists would completely remove introspection from psychology. † Watson strong interest into classical conditioning and controlling the emotions of human behaviour lead to his study of ‘little Albert’ experiment. Previously, in the 1890s Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was interested in classical conditioning, and lead to him looking at salivation in dogs when they were being fed. The introduction to PavloVs work on classical conditioning influenced Watson to then prepare his study on little Albert. â€Å"Watson was interested in taking Pavlov’s research further to show that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people† (Cherry, K. 2012). The study consisted of Watson and Raynor in 1920, exposing an orphan ‘little Albert’ with a series of stimuli, the famous stimuli of all; a white rat, and then observed little Albert’s reactions to it. Little Albert did not show any sign of fear when the rat was exposed. Watson then showed Albert the rat again but making a loud noise. As expected from a youngster, he began to cry after hearing the noise. Each time after that, Watson showed the child the rat and he began to cry automatically. Therefore showing that Watson had conditioned and emotional response of fear with the child when the loud noise was paired with the rabbit cited in (Nicholas, L. 2008). Consequently, Watson was able to show that emotional responses can be conditioned or learned. He then concluded that phobias were most likely conditioned responses. Watson was similar to Freud, that early childhood experiences influenced the adult personality. Watson differed from Freud in that he had behavioural evidence that learned responses in childhood transferred across stimuli and environments† as cited in (Watson et al. 1920). Watson was a proponent of the nurture debate and believed that all individuals’ differences were down to the result of learning. Another psychologist that engages into the nurture debate is Bandura (1961) who conducted a study to investigate if social behaviors can be obtained by imitation. The results supported his Social learning theory. McLeod, S. A. 2011) put forward the results from Bandura’s study as â€Å"Children learn social behavior such as aggression through the process of observation learning – through watching the behavior of another century. This is the school that stresses the importance of the unconscious mind. Psychoanalysis is made up of infantile experiences and for many alongside biological instincts or drives, particularly sexual ones Cones 2001). Therefore thi s takes both nature and nurture perspectives into account. Freud is one of the most endowed and the most complex, figures in the history of psychology Cited in (Glassman & Hadad 009). Freud’s theory can be used to question the behaviourist approach, due to their view that the environment influences and individual’s notion and behaviour. However Freud believes that the human thought and behaviour is more complex than this. â€Å"Freud proposes that the mind is a combination of all conscious and unconscious thoughts† (Malim and birch 1998:9, Cited in Ingleby et al 2010). Freud proposed a three part structure to personality; ‘d, ego and the superego. These three components all have their own individual principles. They are mental processes or systems and not actual physical structures (Griggs 2009). The ld consists of being the source of all basic drives. The ego is the part of the personality that mediates between the ld and the Superego. It is the most pragmatic part of the personality and it finds gratification for instinctual drives within the constraints of norms and society (Griggs 2009). The superego opposes the demands of the ‘d, and is known as the conscience of ones mind. It was the last structure to develop. It is known as the ‘morality principle’ as it represents the moral demands of family and society, and opposes the desire for immediate gratification (Glassman & Hadad 2009). Freud also developed a process that the ego used which is known as the defence mechanism. This is the process which the ego used to protect humans for anxiety. Additionally, moving on from the inequity of the three personality structures, Freud emphasised the importance that childhood experiences impact personality, and this is how he lead to his theory of the psychosexual stages. These stages engaged in the different points that children experienced throughout their childhood. Freud stressed the importance of nature playing a major role throughout each of these stages that children went through (Feshbach et al, 1991). Erik Erikson one of the major neo-Freudian theorists, expanded on Freud’s theory. He developed eight psychosocial stages that he believed each individual came across throughout their life (Glassman ; Hadad 2009). Erikson proposed that an individuals life span , matured throughout their life span, whilst Freud considered that out personality is formed at the age of 5 (Miller 1983). In addition to Freud’s work, psychologist Carl Jung who is best known for his theory of the Collective unconscious established a rapport between the conscious and unconscious. Although Jung agreed with Freud ith the existence of the Unconscious, he believed that Freud failed to explain details about the presence of archetypes within human minds† (Smith 2003 p. 464). Overall, Psychoanalysis accounts for both nature and nurture debate, where Freud and Jung were interested in the unconscious mind; relying on the nature, however Freud also put forward the influence of child experience repres enting the nurture debate. Therefore this school of thought indicates a combination of both nature and nurture. To conclude, there are a number ‘Thoughts of schools† that provide evidence for both Nature and Nurture debate.